


Just for Show

by domesticadventures



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Sam Winchester-centric, Sam as Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-28
Updated: 2015-06-28
Packaged: 2018-04-06 16:09:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4228314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/domesticadventures/pseuds/domesticadventures
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He puts on the ring and picks up the scythe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just for Show

**Author's Note:**

  * For [propinquitous](https://archiveofourown.org/users/propinquitous/gifts).



> Based on [this painful post](http://femmechester.tumblr.com/post/122399078837/) and [this lovely art](http://femmechester.tumblr.com/post/122454904777/) by [propinquitous](http://archiveofourown.org/users/propinquitous/pseuds/propinquitous), as well as on various frantic text messages sent during the middle of the night.
> 
> This is technically major character death. But I mean. Sam is Death in this. So.

Sam is not as surprised as he should be that his first real job offer comes post mortem.

“I would explain the ins and outs,” Death says, “but I have a feeling I’d only be telling telling you what you already know.” He holds up his basket of fried pickles in offering, eyebrow quirked in a silent question.

Sam shakes his head politely.

Death smiles. “No? To which part?”

“The pickles,” Sam says.

He puts on the ring and picks up the scythe.

\--

He doesn’t delight in taking kids, but he doesn’t shy away from it.

So many children were forced to age too quickly, to become accustomed to death before they even really got to live. Sam knows the feeling. Some of them handle it far better than he ever did. He’s sad, but he’s also pretty impressed.

He takes Antonia shortly after her fourteenth birthday.

“Hey,” Sam says.

“Hey,” Antonia says. She pauses, thoughtful. “You look different than I expected.”

Sam laughs. “What were you expecting?”

“I dunno. Long black robe, skeleton face. Scarier.”

Sam thinks of his predecessor, the dark suit and the sunken features. Sam is all plaid and jeans, strong jaw, full hair. He’ll look that way forever, if he chooses. He shrugs. “I looked more like that, before.”

“What, like Jaqen H’gar?”

“Nah,” Sam says. “More of a Dread Pirate Roberts kinda thing.”

“Ahh,” Antonia says, nodding.

Sam frowns. “Wait. Your parents let you watch Game of Thrones?”

It’s Antonia’s turn to shrug. “They let things slide when you’re dying.”

“Fair enough,” Sam says. He jerks a thumb over his shoulder. “Ready to go?”

“Have been for a while,” Antonia says, but she turns nonetheless, looks at her body lying on the hospital bed, her father holding her hand, her mother stroking her hair. She frowns. “Not sure they were, though.” She hesitates. “Are they gonna be okay?”

Sam tells her the only truth he knows. “They’ll live.”

Antonia nods once, to herself, before turning back around. “All right,” she says.

Sam holds out his hand. Antonia takes it and follows him into the light.

\--

People die in all sorts of ways. Most are mundane, heart disease and cancer and car accidents, the slow creeping decay that comes with old age. Some of them are killed by monsters. Some get ten years before the hounds come for them.

And some of them kill each other.

Cody watches his husband chop his body into pieces, put them into bags. Store them in the deep freeze so he can take them to the river one by one.

“I bet he stole the idea from fucking _Daredevil_ ,” Cody says, incredulous.

“He’ll get what’s coming to him,” Sam says, because it’s true. There are a few ways this could go, depending on how well Sam does his job with Cody. Either way, he’ll be coming for his husband soon enough.

“We should go--” Sam continues, but Cody interrupts him with a scoff. He’s watching his husband sleep, now, clearly offended by the peacefulness with which he does it.

“There isn’t even someone else,” Cody says. “He just stopped loving me and didn’t have the guts to say it. He thought this would be easier. The coward.”

“We can’t change what’s done,” Sam says. “But you have a choice to make. You can move on. You can leave this all behind. You can leave him behind.”

Cody stands next to the bed. “And if I stay?”

“Eventually? You become something else. Something inhuman. Something dark and vicious and dangerous.”

Cody sits on the edge of the mattress. He settles one hand on top of his husband’s, hiding his wedding ring from view. His husband shivers in his sleep.

“Good.”

\--

Jackie dies choking on steak.

“Fuck,” she says. “What a lame way to go.”

Sam takes another bite of his food. He’s seen it all. Nothing much surprises him. “It happens.”

Jackie raises an eyebrow at him. “Really?” she says. “Best steak in the state and you’re here eating limp lettuce bathed in some weak vinaigrette? You couldn’t even order a beer?”

“I don’t think you’re really one to be advocating for the steak,” Sam says, because hey. It’s a damn good salad. “Don’t be a jerk.”

Jackie rolls her eyes. “What, you gonna send me down south for dissing your salad?”

Sam shrugs as he chews his food thoughtfully. “Maybe. You wanna find out?”

For a second, Jackie looks like she’s going to snap back at him, dare him to do whatever it is she thinks he’s going to do. She opens her mouth, closes it again. She deflates a little.

“Sorry,” she says. “I’m actually kinda scared. I was. I was kind of an asshole sometimes, you know?”

Sam remembers that fear. That uncertainty, back before he had been to heaven and hell and everywhere inbetween, back before he did what he thought was necessary instead of doing what he knew was right, back when he felt impure and unclean for reasons he didn’t understand. He puts down his fork. “Trust me,” he says, smiling, “you’d have to do a lot worse than diss some vegetables to get sent below. Plus,” he adds, “angels are kind of assholes, too. You’ll fit right in up in heaven.”

“You serious?”

“C’mon,” Sam says, holding out his hand, grinning in encouragement. “You wanna find out?”

\--

Philip is twenty-three when he dies. He doesn’t even look at Sam, at first. He looks at his own body, his blood and brain matter splattered against the walls.

It had been quick, painless. Just like he wanted.

It is not painless now.

Philip stares for minutes, for hours. He watches for so long that his sister finds his body. He watches this person he loves scream and cry and throw up in the sink. He takes it all in and he whispers, “Oh.”

“Hey,” Sam says, softly, hand on Philip’s shoulder, turning him away from the scene he cannot turn away from himself. “Ready to go?”

He hesitates. He closes his eyes and swallows hard. Leans with his forehead resting against Sam’s shoulder. “Not as ready as I thought.”

“Yeah,” Sam says. “I know.”

\--

Babies are the hardest. There’s something about it, about taking them from the world before they have a chance to figure out who they are, who they want to be, that unsettles him. Some of them don’t even have names, whether given or chosen for themselves. There’s one, for instance, who’s already in his arms before they’re born blue and still and silent.

They take one look at Sam and start crying.

“Sorry,” he says, holding the tiny infant as gently as he can. He’s struck with the urge to rock them back and forth, to sing to them until they fall asleep, but he knows it’s no use, now. “Sorry.”

He used to be uneasy when at rest, every idle moment a lost chance to save people from the things they didn’t know existed.

Now, though, he looks forward to the slow days.

\--

Jody’s not quite gone when he visits her.

She’s older now, gray hair and wrinkles and just as fierce as ever. She sees him out of the corner of her eye.

“Don’t even think about it,” Jody says. “Donna and the kids are gonna be here any minute, so you can sit your ass down and wait.”

Sam laughs. “Think the mom voice is still going to work on me, huh?”

Jody scoffs incredulously. “I know it.” She gives him a sideways glance. “Scythe’s a bit much, don’t you think?”

Sam quirks a smile, flicks the metal playfully. “Mostly just for show.”

Jody _hmph_ s, and they settle into a companionable silence while they wait for her family to arrive. When they do, they all come round to give her hugs, press tender kisses to her forehead, whisper their _I love you_ s.

Donna takes her turn last, and when she squeezes her hand, Jody turns her head to look straight at Sam. “All right,” she says, “carry me over that threshold, kid.”

“One express trip to heaven coming right up,” Sam says, standing.

When he leans down and picks Jody up bridal style, easy as anything, she laughs loud and open-mouthed and unapologetic.

“Already there, Sam,” she says. “Already there.”

 


End file.
